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Couldn't Tasha simply give Data's head to Data during that... encounter they had during that incident near the Neutral Zo... Scratch that, that would be an inappropriate suggestion, carry on.

Or better yet, leave it with WarTimeLine Data so it stays in that timeline Blue-Hat Guinan would have a stroke.

__________________
"You have been examined. Your ship must be destroyed. We make assumption you have a deity, or deities, or some such beliefs which comfort you. We therefore grant you ten Earth time periods known as minutes to make preparations."

That pun looks even more wrong in that list. I don't like it. I shouldn't be smiling at it. There's some consolation that it's war timeline Tasha that we're talking about and she isn't troubled by certain past experiences, but still... Besides, it's quite an unnatural thing to do to an android. I think I mumbled something about canon violation and fast-forwarded through that scene. What were they thinking? Fully functional and programmed in multiple techniques my ass...

Hey, get out of there, I didn't mean that. How do you shut this thing off? Be right back...

The Star Trek...er...universe(s)...are a reality where time travel into the past is possible. A universe like that is fundamentally different from a universe where time travel is allowed only one way - for example, in our universe, where you can only travel into the future (be it the slow way, like we all do - or the accelerated way, by traveling close to the speed of light and experiencing time dilation.)

In a universe where only one-way time travel is allowed, causality is a one-way street - the past (and present) affect the future, but not the other way around.

In a universe (or multiverse in Trek's case) where two-way time travel is allowed, causality can flow two ways. The past can affect the future...and the future can affect the past. (And everything gets more "wibbley-wobbly-timey-wimey".)

When Nero changed the future of the Trek universe immediately following his arrival, he also would have cause...ripples...that would affect the past. (And the *mechanism* for this backward effect is that same time travel...information in a universe that allows two way time travel...would travel two ways in time. Change the future...your change the past.)

If this wasn't the case, then new Kirk and company could travel back to, say, any of the times the Prime Timeline Kirk and crew were in the past, meet them, and travel with them into the Prime Timeline. Same for traveling back to any of the times Picard, Sisko, or Janeway were in the past, meet up with them, and travel the Prime Timeline with them.

Which would mean that , if events were *exactly 100% the same* for both timelines before Nero showed up, the Alternate Timeline would be full of visitors from a present and a future that wasn't it's own. Not to mention any visitors from it's own timeline! Which would be chaos.

Now, does this mean Enterprise didn't happen...or that someone name Sisko wasn't involved in the Bell Riots or someone from the future helped Zefram Cocrane get the first warp drive ship off the ground..?

No. All of those things could have happened. As both the Mirror Universe from "Mirror, Mirror" and all the other Mirror Universe episodes demonstrates...and as Star Trek '09 also demonstrates, there is a...resonance...between the the various Trek timelines, and people and events seem to...reoccur.

We already know that there was an Archer and an NX class in the JJ'verse/Alternate Universe timeline, because we saw the model and heard Scotty mention beaming Archer's beagle into the Twilight Zone...

In fact, it's a safe bet that before Nero's incursion, things happened pretty much exactly as we saw them on Enterprise. Just because that's how the new writers want it.

But things aren't necessarily 100% the same, IMHO, because I don't think the Kelvin looked exactly how I think it would have looked in the Prime Timeline. There probably was a USS Kelvin, but I'm not entirely convinced that it had a window-viewscreen, or looked exactly like it did in Trek '09. (But that's just my guess.)

What about Kirk and Edith Keeler, and Sisko and the Bell Riots and Picard and Zefram and the first warp flight..?

Any of those things could happen in the new timeline...or not. I'm going to say that they still happened, but this time they happened with the Alternate Timeline's versions of Kirk, Picard, Sisko and Janeway...and maybe they didn't happen exactly as we saw them in the Prime Timeline. And, maybe some of them didn't happen at all. Maybe in the new timeline it was the original, real Gabriel Bell who died in those riots...I don't know. But I do know that there is no sensical way that new Kirk could travel back to the Bell Riots and meet Sisko Prime, and fly back with him to the Prime Timeline's version of the 24th century - because that is not new Kirk's timeline's future.

In fact, if those events *didn't* happen...or happened differently...well right there is one reason why the past in the Alternate Timeline isn't *exactly* like the past in the Prime Timeline. Similar, yes, very similar in fact...but there would be...differences...that would ripple forward...and ripple backwards.

But, based on the way the writers are treating things, it's very much likely that pre-Nero, history of the Alternate Timeline is *basically* the same as it was in the Prime Timeline. But there might be little differences...like what the USS Kelvin looked like, or whatever else differences pop up in the films.

But things aren't necessarily 100% the same, IMHO, because I don't think the Kelvin looked exactly how I think it would have looked in the Prime Timeline.

But how you think something would have looked is not exactly what we would call Prime Timeline canon, as we never saw the Kelvin before. It's supposed to have been the same Kelvin - "just because that's how the new writers want it". And if we're acting like we're granting credence to writer intent, it seems that going the "not 100%" route just throws out writer intent all over again.

__________________
Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.

In a universe where only one-way time travel is allowed, causality is a one-way street - the past (and present) affect the future, but not the other way around.

In a universe (or multiverse in Trek's case) where two-way time travel is allowed, causality can flow two ways. The past can affect the future...and the future can affect the past. (And everything gets more "wibbley-wobbly-timey-wimey".)

When Nero changed the future of the Trek universe immediately following his arrival, he also would have cause...ripples...that would affect the past. (And the *mechanism* for this backward effect is that same time travel...information in a universe that allows two way time travel...would travel two ways in time. Change the future...your change the past.)

<snip>

Got it!?

I'm not so sure I do.

Granting the premise that time travel can be to future or to past, such that events may be affected either long after or long before one's own "home" time, time itself still moves in one direction only: from past to future. For a given time-stream, a "no change" at a particular point has the stream continuing on unaltered (call this one the 'Prime' timeline,) while a "change" event at the same point creates a branch—at that point—from which an altered (or 'alternate reality') time-stream proceeds. In either case, however, the movement of time is always the same: from upstream (past) to downstream (future).

[past] (time) -----------------------------------------> [future]

The assertion that some "mechanism" allows for a "backward effect" which results in alteration of the time-stream prior to the point in time at which the change was effected has not yet been explained. How would this "mechanism" result in change which "flows upstream, against the current (of time,)" without anything actively propelling it? At best (and the analogy to still-water ripples probably falls completely apart here) I might be willing to buy an extremely limited and extremely local (temporally speaking) "back-splash" effect, but not something which continues to alter the preceding time-stream, centuries into the "past" of the point at which the change was effected. For your "mechanism" to work as you describe, wouldn't time itself have to reverse direction and flow backward?

[past] <----------------------------------------- (time) [future]

That's the question, I think: how do you propose to make that temporal river flow "uphill," or—put another way—what sort of "mechanism" (in your opinion) could conceivably cause that to happen?

__________________"It is my belief that nearly any invented quotation, played with
confidence, stands a good chance to deceive." — Mark Twain

My reasoning for the time stream to change in two directions is thus; Once the future is changed, if the past that has been affected by the future doesn't change as well, paradoxes will result. To avoid paradoxes, the timeline is affected going all the way back to the Universe' creation, eventually causing the entire alternate timeline to disconnect from the point of the original split. I'd assume it disconnects with a loud popping noise too.

Once the timeline was split due to to Nero's temporal incursion, anything affected in the past by time-traveling Starfleet crews from the Prime future cannot exist without cause. As we all know, effect without cause is a paradox.

Examples;
-How can Prime Data's head exist under past San Francisco if he may never come to exist? (TNG: Time's Arrow parts 1 & 2)
-How can Bill Shatner go back in time and kidnap some whales if he's now Chris Pine with entirely different circumstances surrounding him? (STIV)
-How can Voyager exist at the moment of The Big Bang if that series never happens? (YOY: Death Wish)
-How can Borg Patrick Stewart left behind be blown up by Scott Bakula if everything Borg-related in the 24th century happens differently? (STFC, ENT: Regeneration)
-How can the Temporal Cold war occur with a completely different 31st century? (ENT)

In conclusion, events in 2387 changed the past much further back than 2233, creating the Abrams Trek: Abramsprise TV series that we never got to see.

Note:
Prime-Nero and Prime-Spock aren't immediately erased from existence because the Prime timeline still exists, just separate from the ST09/STiD timeline.

The idea is that people from these myriad futures can journey back into the shared past. I.E. Daniels from Enterprise's future didn't include the Xindi attack, Spock's future didn't include Nero destroying the Kelvin.

I might be willing to buy an extremely limited and extremely local (temporally speaking) "back-splash" effect

Which would be enough to cover the first few minutes of a radically different U.S.S. Kelvin we see in the beginning of ST2009.

That said, I can't remember: do we see the black hole flash into existence in the 2009 film's opening, or does the film technically open after the black hole has opened, which would explain the changes?

My reasoning for the time stream to change in two directions is thus; Once the future is changed, if the past that has been affected by the future doesn't change as well, paradoxes will result. To avoid paradoxes, the timeline is affected going all the way back to the Universe' creation, eventually causing the entire alternate timeline to disconnect from the point of the original split. I'd assume it disconnects with a loud popping noise too.

Once the timeline was split due to to Nero's temporal incursion, anything affected in the past by time-traveling Starfleet crews from the Prime future cannot exist without cause. As we all know, effect without cause is a paradox.

Examples;
-How can Prime Data's head exist under past San Francisco if he may never come to exist? (TNG: Time's Arrow parts 1 & 2)
-How can Bill Shatner go back in time and kidnap some whales if he's now Chris Pine with entirely different circumstances surrounding him? (STIV)
-How can Voyager exist at the moment of The Big Bang if that series never happens? (YOY: Death Wish)
-How can Borg Patrick Stewart left behind be blown up by Scott Bakula if everything Borg-related in the 24th century happens differently? (STFC, ENT: Regeneration)
-How can the Temporal Cold war occur with a completely different 31st century? (ENT)

In conclusion, events in 2387 changed the past much further back than 2233, creating the Abrams Trek: Abramsprise TV series that we never got to see.

Note:
Prime-Nero and Prime-Spock aren't immediately erased from existence because the Prime timeline still exists, just separate from the ST09/STiD timeline.

Except that prior to the Kelvin being dispatched to the Klingon border to investigate "a lightning storm in space" the timelines were one. With the Kelvin going on that new mission the timelines split, but everything before still happened the way it did.

There are two possibilities:
1. Both universes have a shared continuous past.

For example, if someone from 2425 in the Primeline travelled back to any date before 2233 and someone from 2270 in the Abramsverse travelled back to any date before 2233 both of those individuals would be in the same reality. They would be able to interact with each other. The question arises however, when these people return to the future which universe will they enter?

2. Both universes have a shared, but now separate past.

Events occurring prior to 2233, regardless or not if they were influenced by time travel from the Primeline, still occur exactly the same as they did in both resulting universes. The separation of the timelines has no effect on the history of the universes. If someone from the Abramsverse travelled back to First Contact they would meet the crew of the Enterprise-E from the Primeline. Daniels from the 31st Prime-century still drags Archer into the Temporal Cold War even though Daniels' future may not exist as it is in the Abramsverse.

Set Harth wrote:

The film opens before the black hole.

The film opens with the Kelvin investigating "a lightning storm in space", something which would not exist without the events in the Primeline converging on Spock using Red Matter to destroy Hobus. Even if the Narada never emerged from the black hole the timeline would still have been split as the Kelvin would have a different history-future.

the Kelvin being dispatched to the Klingon border to investigate "a lightning storm in space"

This is incorrect. The Kelvin was near the Klingon border for some reason, but had not been dispatched there to investigate the "lightning storm"; it discovered the "lightning storm" and was reporting the existence of the anomaly to Starfleet.

__________________
Just walk away, and there will be an end to the horror.

It could be a simple error but if not then it would be an apparent error since this guy was an embryo captured by non-Augment forces and placed on ice with his "siblings" until their births in the 22nd century as seen in the ENT season 4 Augments arc.

Maybe just maybe this is proof that the Abramsverse was in fact already a quantum reality of its own with miniscule differences from the prime reality including Malik being born in the 20th century instead of the 22nd. And if Malik and his crew were among Khan's top lieutenants who fled aboard the S.S. Botany Bay instead of being captured embryos on ice until the 22nd century, then that would mean that the Qu'Vat virus of the 22nd century never happened and that no Quch'ha arose and so Kor was born a Hem'Quch as seen in Nero #1.